Interim
by Silan Haye
Summary: A twenty something mafia heir married an awkward German girl, and through the days of isolation they fall for each other. Set in Sicily, 1940.


Disclaimer: Hetalia Axis Powers © Hidekaz Himaruya

A/N: This story has been sitting in my laptop for awhile. I didn't upload it because I'm more into SpaMano and yaoi couples, but recently I found this couple is pretty cute, so….

Also: yes, I make Liechtenstein a German. Just because.

Warning: This story is un-betaed.

~.~.~.~

"Do you love me?"

"Well… I… ah. No? I'm sorry."

"That's alright. At least our feelings are mutual."

~.~.~.~

She was born when he entered high school and they married seventeen years later. She hasn't even gotten her first kiss yet.

Both were of infamous clan—she was the daughter of the head of a corporation specializing in firearms and he was the first heir of influential mafia family in Sicily. They never met each other until the War broke and their respectful fathers decided to merge, the corporation became number one supplier for the Famiglia, and what's more effective way to tie up two different entities than to marry the intangible asset of both sides?

It was a modest wedding in a small church of a forgotten Sicilian town (no need to attract unwanted attention), she wore a beautiful green dress (respecting her soon-to-be husband's tradition) and they awkwardly held hands in front of the priest. The vows had been read and he kissed her—a little girl with lost expression and scared eyes, the victim of their family's obsession.

He kissed her, and he couldn't help but feeling lost too.

~.~.~.~

She couldn't cook to save her life. He found it out a week after the wedding.

They lived in an adequate house on the outskirts of town, far from family's business and the dangers. He was used to waking up to delicious meal and coffee his maids served that he was surprised by something she called breakfast-some weird gooey brown thing ("wheat porridge, but I kind of messed it up a bit," she explained with burning cheeks) and a pathetic excuse of sunny side-up.

He kept silent and forced them down his throat, and after three days of no improvement he took the frying pan and pots.

"I'll teach you how to make pasta."

She blushed, both from embarrassment that a criminal heir could cook better than her and from the way he pressed himself behind her, guiding her hands to chop, slice, stir.

She was a fast learner.

He complimented the breakfast at the eleventh day of their wedding, and he thought her pinking cheeks were cute.

~.~.~.~

When he got home, there was a bouquet of white lily on the kitchen table. "Where did this come from?"

"Oh, a nice man from the market gave it to me," she answered coyly while stirring pene in a pot (she was learning new recipes every day). "He said it was 'per la mia ragazza bella'. Such a sweet name, isn't it?"

She didn't speak Italian. She thought it was the bouquet's name.

His lips thinned, to her confusion he brought the beautiful flowers outside and dumped it in the nearest bin. Later that evening he brought home a big bouquet of red roses and put it on the table with a card hanging on one of the petals.

"Per la mia ragazza bella, che è mia e mia unica."

She opened her dictionary and flustered.

He always brought her flowers afterwards. She never took one from the others again.

~.~.~.~

"Sto imparando Italiano. Vuoi insegnare a me?" I'm learning Italian. Would you teach me?

"Nur wenn du mir beibringen Deutsch." Only if you teach me German.

They grinned at each other from behind the dictionaries. It was their new evening routine.

~.~.~.~

The silky dress felt cool and ticklish on her skin. They were attending a ball of a new Austrian aristocrat and he led her song after song, all through the night. She always dreamed her dance partner to be that of someone her age with blue eyes and blonde hair, but this man thirteen years older with brown locks and hazel eyes would do.

~.~.~.~

She read Dante on a rainy afternoon with her so-called dictionary on her lap (already wrinkled for overuse), and when she reached Purgatory she couldn't help but wonder why she was so adamant on learning the language in the first place.

When she found a copy of Goethe inside his coat, she thought she might know the answer.

~.~.~.~

"I've finished Dante."

"You did?"

"Yes. How was your Goethe?"

"Wha—" For the first time since their vowing she saw him blushed. "H-how did you…?"

"I found one in your coat when I was doing laundry."

"Oh."

"So? How was it?"

"Ah, I've finished some," he admitted, smiling slightly. "I like Faust the best."

Then he started to recite, his awkward tongue sang the beliefs of a man hopelessly fell in love to an innocent lass with such verve, those glinting hazel orbs boring to greens of hers. She couldn't look away.

"_Fill your heart to overflowing, and when you feel profoundest bliss then call it what you will: Good fortune! Heart! Love! or God! I have no name for it! Feeling is all, the name is sound and smoke, beclouding Heaven's glow_."

When she found her naked self tangled up in his arms the next morning, she wondered whether the narration itself held the devil's trick, or his charms eventually swept her off her feet.

~.~.~.~

They sat against a large oak tree as the sun set on a warm summer night, her head in his lap and he was reciting lines from Faust I. The story of Faust and young Gretchen had enchanted them, favored due to the same pattern they themselves had.

"Your Deutsch has improved greatly."

"Grazie." He brushed her hair. "I would say the same if only you aren't too shy to read me Dante."

"But, I don't want to read Dante to show you I can speak Italiano."

"Then how would you show me?"

She sat up and looked at him in the eye. The soft breeze flowing past and he could smell the scent of pine and rose and their kitchen and something that was could only described as her, and then their lips met.

It was fourteen months after the small church and the priest and awkward kiss; and when she initiated the second one they realized they were no longer lost nor scared.

They found comfort in each other.

~.~.~.~

"Ti amo, tesoro mio."

"Ich liebe dich, mein liebling."

She always dreamed her future husband to be that of someone her age with blue eyes and blonde hair, but this man thirteen years older with brown locks and hazel eyes would do.

No, scratch that. This man was ten times better.

~.~.~.~

I'm sorry if the Italian/German is incorrect. I use Google translate. Corrections are welcomed.

References:

[1] In Italian tradition, South Italy to be exact, the bride wears green dress as the symbol of fortune and protection.

[2] Dante is famous Italian poet. Divine Comedy is his most known work that split into three parts, respectively titled Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.

[3] Goethe is German literati. Faust is one of his most famous works, about a man obsessed with knowledge that has been tricked by the devil and fell madly in love to a young maiden named Gretchen.


End file.
